It is important to know what encourages people to smoke so that efforts can be made to reduce exposure to things that encourage smoking. In the Health Sponsorship Council’s (HSC’s) 2008 Health and Lifestyles Survey (HLS), respondents were asked a series of questions to assess the extent, location, and nature of exposure to things that might encourage people to smoke.
Methodology
All respondents were asked how often they noticed things that might encourage people to smoke. Those who had reported any exposure (n=767) were asked two open-ended questions to identify where they had seen things that might encourage people to smoke and what these were:
- Think about everything that happens around you. In the last six months, about how often have you noticed things that might encourage people to smoke (‘never’, ‘rarely’, ‘sometimes’, ‘often’, or ‘very often’)?
- Where did you notice these things that encourage smoking?
- Can you describe what it was you saw or heard that was encouraging smoking?
The open-ended questions were post-coded and proportions were calculated for all three questions. Responses to the first question were also compared by:
- Smoking status (current smokers and past smokers, compared to never smokers).
- Ethnicity (Māori, compared with non-Māori).
- Neighbourhood deprivation status (high • - NZDep 8-10 and medium - NZDep 4-7, compared with low - NZDep 1-3).
- Age (25 to 34 years, 35 to 54 years, and • 55 + years, compared with 15 to 24 years).
- Gender.
Statistically significant differences (p < .05) are reported.
Key Results
- Around one in two (49%) respondents reported that, in the past six months, they had been exposed to things that might encourage people to smoke.
- Among those who reported any exposure to things that might encourage people to smoke, around one in four (23%) identified television as the source of the exposure, while around one in five (21%) mentioned movies.
- Among those who reported any exposure to things that might encourage people to smoke, around one in three (32%) reported that seeing other people smoking would encourage them to smoke. In addition around one in six (15%) mentioned peer pressure and around one in 10 (11%) mentioned socialising.